


Rebelling at Stagnation

by Beguile



Category: Enola Holmes (2020)
Genre: Car Accident, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Interrogation, Medicinal Drug Use, Memory Loss, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Plotting Watson, Post-Operative Wounds, Protective Mycroft, broken ribs, disorientation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-19 03:08:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29744079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beguile/pseuds/Beguile
Summary: Following an accident, Sherlock can't seem to wake up. Pity, because the game's afoot.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes & Mycroft Holmes
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Rebelling at Stagnation

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for Febuwhump, and I ended up quite liking it, so I thought I would share here. 
> 
> The title is taken from _The Sign of Four_ : "My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation."
> 
> There is a longer story, to be certain, but I can't commit to writing it, so for right now, this is a one-shot. Please, enjoy the whump!

* * *

There are no thoughts, no thoughts at all, merely a jumble of sensations. The condition is intolerable. Waiting is of no use: Sherlock has no sense of time, only of a blanket pulled up to his neck. He pulls it down and someone replaces it. The fibres catch on bandages around his chest. Useful information, not that he can do anything with it.

A blasted hand grips his through the cover. Sherlock pulls away, activating a series of aches and pains for him to catalogue. Two broken ribs, one bruised; a surgical incision over his liver, likely a response to internal bleeding. He hit something, or something hit him, high enough velocity to damage him internally. He may have a head injury from the impact. It would explain the disorientation, the senselessness. Then again, he’s also had surgery. Perhaps it’s merely the latent effects of the anesthetic.

But then why, why isn’t it wearing off?

He means to ask, but that lethargy, that drowse, that damnable dryness in his mouth all conspires to keep him quiet, complacent. A model patient in what he can only hope – dimly - isn’t Bedlam or some other such establishment. They would know who he is, of course. The great Sherlock Holmes. Mycroft and Watson would be fetched and informed of his condition and the circumstances surrounding it, whatever those are. Sherlock can’t remember, and the effort of trying is staggering. More confirmation of a head injury or anesthesia or both, and all the more reason for him to break from the relentless fugue.

The blanket comes down in one fell swoop. Sherlock’s certain it’s on account of him: his arms are burning from the exertion. His head is spinning. Thoughts exist to get carried around in the torpor. Vision appears, a blurring, swirling pool of sunlight, mahogany, and crimson. Sherlock’s no time for it or that hand, and he says as much in a slur of syllables as garbled as his vision.

“Is he conscious?” a voice asks from afar. There are the sounds of a scuffle. A door comes into focus, along with some shadowy figures on the other side. Mycroft holds them back.

“More ravings, I’m afraid,” he says. “His injuries have left him delirious and insensate, you understand.”

“My injuries have –“ Sherlock can’t muster the rest of the words. His chest is too tight, the pain too great, as he pushes himself upright. The room swims around him – Mycroft’s estate, the East wing. Why here? Why not Baker Street? And, “Who is that?”   
  
Watson, next to him, stabs him in the arm with a needle. “Watson, what the…?” His old friend draws the syringe out, raising a finger to his lips as he hides it in his sleeve.

He rises. “He is quite delirious, I assure you, gentlemen. Perfectly incapable of answering any questions.”   
  
Sherlock opens his mouth to tell them that he is not, that the both of them need to mind their tongues, but he’s falling, suddenly. First simply by a feeling, but then he’s literally falling, one arm giving out and then the other until he’s back on the pillows.

Watson draws the blanket back up to his chin. Sherlock tries to shirk it off, but he hasn’t any fight them in him. His eyelids are heavy, and his eyes keep rolling around in their sockets, furthering that spinning sensation. He manages one last moment of focus to glare at Watson, and by providence, catches his friend’s lips moving: “Trust me.”  
  
Sherlock glances in Mycroft’s direction, but blackness has overtaken his periphery. He feels Watson’s hand in his, feels two squeezes of reassurance. He tries to return the favour but he’s tired, so tired, and the pain is gone. The blanket pushes him down into the mattress, and Sherlock feels his eyelids slowly closing on the three strangers suddenly at his bedside.

They’re speaking, but their words are meaningless, at least until one of them gets to the point and asks, “Where is Enola?”   
  
Sherlock slips into unconsciousness uncertain if he knows.

* * *

Questions gather and disperse. Sherlock tries to hold onto them, but the journey into awareness – dim and blurry as Sherlock’s is – affords him no strength to carry any thoughts with him. He can’t even muster the anger for being so subdued.

Watson and Mycroft are constants. Sherlock hears their voices through the fugue. Occasionally, there are other voices, all men, distinguishable only by the intensity with which they pose their questions. Sherlock never remembers their visits. They seem to appear when he is at his most groggy, his most soporific, his least cogent. The coincidence strikes Sherlock as something he ought to pay attention to, but then he has no attention to give. His mind becomes a formless void, dark and dreamless, even as the mysterious men speak only of Enola.

* * *

“Where is she?”

Sherlock can’t be certain that he’s awake. His eyes won’t open, and his body is dead weight. Yet he knows Mycroft is there because nobody is badgering him with questions or stabbing him with needles. There is the soft scent of newspaper and cigar smoke flitting through the air.

“You should rest, brother,” Mycroft says blasély.

“I have done enough resting,” Sherlock says. He means to use every last precious second of consciousness to his advantage. “Where is she?”   
  
“You don’t know?”   
  
Sherlock raises a hand what feels like a good distance from the bed and lets it fall, discovering he barely got it off the blanket. “You know damn well, I-“

“Well, there you have it,” Mycroft says in a jovial tone. He flips to the next page in the newspaper. Sherlock’s eyes spring open, and he peers down at the man standing at the foot of the bed, making a note on a pad like a bad actor playing a detective. “He doesn’t know. Now would you kindly leave my brother to his recovery?”

“Who is that?” Sherlock asks. Before Mycroft can give a non-answer or tell him to get some rest again, he directs his question at the man, “Who are you?”   
  
“Nobody you need concern yourself with, Mr. Holmes,” the man says. “Are you quite certain you don’t know where your sister is?”   
  
“Why so interested?”

“I would think you be. I’m not the one in such a state, confined to a bed.”   
  
Sherlock is careful not to say his observation out loud: that this is her doing, or in some part her responsibility. He still can’t remember. There must be an entire day erased from his memory, one that Mycroft and Watson are purposefully keeping him from, along with the necessary mental faculties to find Enola. “I haven’t seen my sister in a very long time,” he says.

“Eyewitnesses report-“   
  
Mycroft snaps the newspaper shut. “Eyewitnesses that my brother cannot corroborate in his condition.”   
  
“Mycroft, let me-“

But Mycroft isn’t letting anybody. His indignation comes off him in a great wave, as only the indignation of Mycroft Holmes can. Bolstered by his house, his wealth, his influence, he might as well be slashing at the man with a saber. “I have told you, since the beginning, my brother is incapable of confirming your story. He does not know the whereabouts of our sister, nor is he able to competently speak on them-“

“I would if you were not-“   
  
“-and yet here you stand, day after day, needling him during the few precious moments of lucidity he has as he recovers, to discover, what? That he has not seen Enola in months. That he has been injured. That he is, as I and his personal physician have stated in no condition-“   
  
“Mr. Mycroft, if you please-“

The paper crumples against the edge of the bed. Mycroft stands from his chair. “This interrogation is over.”

“This investigation is not,” the man states.

“Certainly not. Our sister is still in the wind, but you will not find her here, nor will you find any useable information. My brother needs his rest, and you need to focus your energies on apprehending a _sixteen-year-old girl_.” Mycroft scoffs. “Not that, I think, your additional focus will do much. At this rate, my delirious, half-dead brother will solve the case before you do.”

He calms, gives a slight bow, so curt that Sherlock feels the insult through his dense layers of fog. The man bears his shame better than expected, even as Mycroft deals his last crushing blow with, “Good day,” and sinks back into the chair.

The man opens and closes his mouth several times, but finally, he leaves.

The room is quiet. Far off in the great hall, the front door shuts. Automobiles leave the premises. By then, Sherlock has fallen into a doze, his mind flitting lazily through the scene of a drive through the country, fields passing at high speeds on both sides. Enola’s hair on the breeze, her hands on the wheel. She looks at him and beams, and he beams back, and then a shadow falls upon them.

Sherlock jerks away, groaning from the sudden shock of pain.

“There was an accident.”

“Yes,” Sherlock says, gripping his injured side, “I know.”   
  
Mycroft releases a heavy sigh. He notices the verb, no doubt - _know_ instead of _remember_ – and doesn’t ask more than, “Why did she leave you?”   
  
“Those men, for starters,” Sherlock says. Enola’s too bright to stick around when someone’s after her, “And because I told her to.”   
  
“You remember?” Mycroft asks, surprised.

Sherlock shakes his head: he doesn’t. “I just know.”

* * *

Dreams return. Sherlock wishes they wouldn’t. They’re muddling his understanding of events, transforming his drive with Enola into absurdist fiction. Mycroft in the backseat, Watson seated pleasantly on the hood, the Woman…

She’s there, hat dipped over one eye. “Good evening, Mr.-“   
  
He wakes to clear vision, perfectly articulated thoughts. Awareness of fine scents, clean linens. A distinct lack of Mycroft, a pleasant change, though Watson has another infernal needle in his arm.

Sherlock withdraws. “Watson-“   
  
“Relax, Holmes, it’s a vitamin injection.” The needle retracted. Watson set it on the table near the bed. He held up Sherlock’s wrist, pressing his fingers to find a pulse.

“Vitamin injections, snake oil…”

“Would you prefer morphine?”

“I would prefer knowing why,” Sherlock says.

Watson puts his wrist down on the bed, satisfied. Or, perhaps, he was never really measuring the pulse. The way his fingers linger on Sherlock’s hand suggest a need for physical contact. It is grounding, pleasant, even. He hasn’t seen Watson for a while. Marriage and a private practice take up so much of the good doctor’s time. His hand disappears from Sherlock’s too soon.

“Mycroft says you don’t remember,” he says.

“I was in a car accident.”   
  
“You do rem-?”   
  
“I deduced. Broken ribs and internal bleeding from an impact to the right.”   
  
“You were found alone in the vehicle,” Watson adds, a warning against him saying more. Sherlock doesn’t need the reminder. Mycroft’s house isn’t private or secure, even if he and Watson are the only ones in this wing. “You stole it.”

“Borrowed.”

“Oh, well, that changes everything. Special Branch will surely end their investigation knowing that the car – which is now destroyed – was merely borrowed.”   
  
“Why is Special Branch investigating a stolen car?” But Sherlock isn’t looking for Watson to answer, and Watson knows better than to do so even with Sherlock at a fraction of his usual faculties. The injuries he sustained are on the right. The car was struck on the right. Yet Sherlock is positive he wasn’t driving, ergo – “The car was American.”   
  
“Stolen – oh, apologies, _borrowed_ from an American diplomat. An American diplomat who is now dead.”   
  
“Special Branch thinks I killed the diplomat.”   
  
“No. They think Enola killed the diplomat.”   
  
“Hah,” Sherlock barks, half-entertained but mostly stunned at Special Branch’s inanity.

“Opinions are divided as to whether you were a hostage, an accomplice, or a bystander.”   
  
“What’s your opinion?”

“Officially? That you and Enola, if she was even present, were trying to prevent the diplomat’s death and simply arrived too late. Your flight in the appropriated vehicle –“   
  
“Borrowed.”   
  
“- was prompted by the true killer, who pursued you and caused a collision with the vehicle in question to prevent your escape.”   
  
Sherlock wishes he could remember, but there is only the dreamy images of him and Enola on the country roads. The whimsy in her smile, the vibrancy, seemed dampened by learning they were leaving a crime scene, though the thrill of escape, of solving a puzzle, of her commandeering a vehicle as expertly as she had, overwhelmed their better judgment.

He leaves the memories alone, irritated by their incompleteness, by their lack of detail, by their flimsiness. Every word from Watson could be altering his perception of the objective reality surrounding them. Perhaps this was a dream, nothing more, and he had been in the car by himself. Perhaps Enola was under suspicion strictly for being a young woman of independent means, a highly suspicious character at any level of law enforcement but particularly Special Branch.

The rest of the story is immaterial, changing nothing of the logical course of action: they need to find Enola and expose this killer. Sherlock needs to get out of bed. He tries rising, asking, “Only one question remains then: why sedate me, Watson? Surely I could have been of use.”   
  
Watson catches him by the shoulders and sits down on the bed next to him. Sherlock puts up a fight, but the doctor is ready for him, ready for the air to be forced out of Sherlock’s lungs, ready for the pain in his abdomen to leave him shaken. Sherlock ends up back on the pillows gasping, his mind fluttery and strange and unnatural.

“Damn it, Watson,” he curses, “Why?” He is a mind, first and foremost, and now he isn’t even that. He’s a wounded body trying to sort out fact from fiction. Meanwhile, a killer is on the loose, one who may have Enola; and Enola is on her own, alone, in a world she can’t possibly understand, with Special Branch on her heels.

Watson goes to check his infernal pulse again. This time Sherlock rips his wrist away and scuttles up against the headboard. “You nearly died, Sherlock,” Watson says sternly.

Sherlock scoffs. “There are other lives at stake here.”   
  
“The fact is,” Watson chooses his next words carefully, bless him, their partnership having given him the foresight to mind his tongue. “Special Branch can’t confirm that it was Enola in the car with you. They have theories and conjecture, meaning their focus, as of this moment, is on the killer, not on her or whoever else may have been in the car with you.”   
  
“I could have said as much if I had been allowed to speak.”   
  
“You kept saying her name. When we brought you here, the few moments of lucidity you did have, you kept asking for her.”   
  
“She’s my sister.”  
  
“She’s a suspect. Or she could be.” Watson puts his hand on Sherlock’s, holding it, and his voice lowers to a whisper. “Special Branch was looking for a reason. As a doctor, as your friend, I couldn’t allow you to give them one.”

The pieces slide into place even as Sherlock rages against his own incapacity. One slip of his tongue, and Special Branch has their evidence. Enola is labelled a killer, and all of London starts looking for her. But silent, sleeping, the Great Detective is no witness, and Special Branch is left making their little notes, cobbling together the words of the masses, inconsistent testimonies, and Enola will manoeuvre easily through the chaos. Provided she isn’t a prisoner.

Sherlock eases back into the bed. Watson draws the blanket up over his chest, and Sherlock pushes it back down, glaring at him, though he can’t sustain the expression. The logic of Watson’s actions, the compassion and respect for Enola, for Sherlock, it’s all undeniable, and given the circumstances, better, frankly, than what could be expected from common men.

He doesn’t need to say it, and Watson doesn’t need it said. Instead, Sherlock inquires, “You must be heading back to London soon. Your wife will be missing you.”   
  
“Indeed she does, as I miss her. But we understand: my work here isn’t finished.”   
  
“Your services as a doctor are no longer necessary.”   
  
“But my services as a consulting detective.”   
  
“-‘s biographer.”   
  
“Friend.”

“Friend,” Sherlock agrees. “Yes. But this is a private matter. A family matter.”   
  
Watson levels a stare at him. “Am I not family?”   
  
Sherlock sighs. Usually, he wouldn’t bother with the question – immaterial, irrelevant – but his brain is still recovering and generates an impossible swell of warmth through his chest. “It’s dangerous,” he says lamely.

“When has that ever stopped me before?” Watson asks.

And then, because the bed is comfortable and his brain is still muddled, Sherlock adds, quietly, “I can’t lose you. You are…important to me, Watson.”

“I can’t lose you,” Watson agrees, “And having very nearly lost you, just recently, I won’t be dissuaded. Holmes and Watson, on the case.”  
  
The warmth spreading through him grows heavy, warmer than the blanket and far less intrusive. Sherlock doesn’t try to move it away from his neck, letting it rise through his face, all the way to the crown of his head. “Thank you,” he says.

“You’re welcome,” Watson says. “Are you hungry?”

“No,” Sherlock says. He wants to get up, but he’s afraid he’s falling asleep. Again. He tries to tell Watson, again, how much he despises the effects of this plan, how the cost is too great. How they should have applied stimulants to offset the effects of anesthetic and head injury, but his eyelids close. Watson grips his hand. He sleeps.

The next time he wakes, he’s ready.

* * *

Happy Reading!


End file.
